FCO professionals join ASIS UK

20th March 2017

The ASIS UK Chapter is always pleased to welcome new members, something we are doing on an increasing regular basis; writes Mike Hurst, Vice Chairman, ASIS International UK Chapter.

The Chapter is also seeing more members joining from single companies. This year, for example, we have had nine new members join from Amazon: they are studying for their CPP Certifications. There is another large group from Amazon, based on mainland Europe, also engaged in CPP study. The UK Chapter is the fourth largest globally and the biggest outside of North America.

The biggest influx this year (so far) comes not from a commercial organisation, but from the UK Government. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) which employs over 14,000 people in nearly 270 diplomatic offices, wanted to accredit its security professionals and after researching all the various security membership organisations, approached ASIS in the UK to discuss how their team could join.

The process was led by ASIS UK Chapter Vice Chairmen, Mike Hurst and Graham Bassett, and following meetings with the FCO in the UK and with the ASIS Leadership in the US, the Chapter is delighted to welcome almost 40 new ASIS UK members from the FCO and this number is likely to increase over the few months. We expect a good number of these security professionals to undertake ASIS Certifications (CPP, PSP and PCI) as well.

This initiative shows how seriously the FCO take its security responsibilities and the fact they chose ASIS International, I hope, speaks volumes for the glocal (global yet local) reach of the association.